It reminds me how much I miss the weekly BMG humor summary (not a criticism of our beleaguered editors, just nostalgia provoked by another hilarious Borowitz piece).

On a more serious note, it seems to me that we are seeing actual treason on display before the world. There is no reasonable doubt the Russian agents have been conducting cyber warfare against the US (and for that matter, the western world) for a very long time. There is no doubt that the Russian government is attacking the US homeland.

Mr. Trump’s behavior this weekend explicitly demonstrates his tolerance of, if not complicity in, that attack.

Then we will be presented with actual concrete proof of treason (or whatever you call it when an official works on behalf of a foreign power attempting to destroy America, whether or not a declared state of war exists).

The question we will soon face is whether our GOP collaborators have the courage to actually impeach and convict the participants in this treasonous conspiracy.

Tom, I agree — it’s so dead-serious that we scarcely have the language to talk about it. We on the left are used to rather more measured takes when talking about foreign threats or domestic betrayal, but this is all so absolutely blatant, and consequential — with no political accountability response from the Republicans, because their base has all thrown in with Trump. We are being openly sold out to an openly malicious, murderous, authoritarian foreign power. The United States government — its protections for its citizens — is being gutted and sold for scrap, from the State Dept, the EPA, NASA, you name it. We won the Cold War and Russia is winning the cyber war.

Mueller might get fired, with no consequence from Congressional Republicans. And then they can steal the next election, too.

The Cold War was us against the USSR. It was about real-estate. It was us fighting in Vietnam to stop the “domino effect”.

This time, it’s different and it has no geographical borders.

Russia is an oligarchy and it is trying to turn the west from a democracy into an oligarchy. This is not about moving borders or invading with armies. This is about centralizing capital across the globe with a limited number of individuals controlling that capital.

It’s the Panama Papers. It’s the Paradise Papers. It’s a war of the ownership class against the working class on a global scale with the Russian front as one, but not the only and probably not the largest threat to democracy.

The Witch-King was only ever present for one meeting and didn’t open his mouth to talk once during it. Technically, he doesn’t have a mouth anymore ever since he was turned into a scary, immortal nightmare creature. The recent charges filed against him have nothing to do with Lord Sauron’s extremely successful path to lordship, so stop searching for a connection between those two things.

I just finished reading a book called Democracy In Chains, which tells the story of the decades-long attempt to destroy government’s ability to work for the people by those who believe that liberty means the freedom to take as much as they can and heck with everyone else.

“Badinage” and “raillery” were terms I learned from a book written by a friend’s father, Steven Miller — “Conversation”. Back about 10 years ago, it was the ideal of BMG that that’s what our comment section would be like: Good-humored banter. And at various times, it has been. I have to say that lately it’s looked an awful lot like … a comments section. You know, stakes are high and tempers are hot, I get it … but we should be better, smarter, nicer, funnier and more patient than Twitter and the Herald comments. The nastiness actively chases people away, I’m convinced of it. And it’s just so damned senseless.

I mean … should I just ban people, put people in time-out, or delete comments willy-nilly? I am not used to using such a heavy hand. We’re all adults.

Since we’re talking about your editing role, I hope you don’t mind my asking – is Bob Neer still around? I know David left a while ago and he told us so, but Bob’s last post was in January and I haven’t seen a comment from him in quite some time either.

Steve Miller was a key part of the SF psychedelic rock and blues scenes in the 1960s. Then he became what you called a “dad rocker,” very funny and accurate. I leave the room when bands play his later music.

But you have to also understand that in those days that Fleetwood Mac was an outrageously good blues band, founded by Peter Green. He smoked his composition “Green Manalishi, and he, not Santana, wrote “Black Magic Woman.” Steve Miller and Fleetwood Mac have traveled far from their roots in ways that I do not appreciate.

FWIW, the Supreme Court changed the definition of “official corruption” last year and that impacted what happened in this case (in addition to other decisions that have lessened corruption issues with regard to campaign financing). A conviction now requires the very clearest quid pro quo, and on something important, like a vote on a bill. Taking lots of money and favors from a donor and then connecting that donor with friends or doing other favors doesn’t really cut it. We should be doing much better than allowing that among our ranks, though. To get convicted now you have to be both outrageously corrupt and outrageously dumb. But again, we should demand better in our ranks. (Also, Menendez was incredibly mediocre as a Senator otherwise.)

With sexual assault and harassment – I think we need to encourage the reckoning.

I think a case can be made that overt action is required for something to be criminal. The Ethics Committee (you know, if Congress had a real one) could impose a separate “appearance of impropriety” standard. That’s what ours does.

It looks terrible. That said, I’m always OK for a waiting period of a few days to sort out what one really thinks — even about ugly stuff. It seems like each of us is called to comment on something immediately — here, social media, etc. It’s OK to not rush to judgment — even as people quite properly react with horror to the story.

And it looks like the Times won’t let me select text, but she says that Republicans will use any mercy toward Franken as a means to defend far worse actions (she names Trump and Moore), and concludes (though she likes Franken) that “It’s not worth it.”